To Taking Chances
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1594: On a date out with George, he and Chloe talk about what they'll do after Rachel's workshop is done and they have to part ways. - Red series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 75th cycle. Now cycle 76!_

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**"To Taking Chances"  
((Older) Rachel, Sophie (OC)), Chloe (OC)/George (OC)  
Red Series  
(no listings yet; sequel to "Secret No More")**

George had known about her living arrangements for a while, but he'd never been to the house. One day, some weeks ago, they'd been talking on the computer, and Rachel had not realized, so when she had walked in and into the camera's sight, there had been little for Chloe to deny. He'd been good about it, keeping the secret so long as she'd wanted it that way, but now that her friends knew, there was no reason for her not to have him over.

It was on his first visit that he had used the opportunity in order to ask her out on a date for the upcoming weekend.

He had told her to dress 'somewhere between casual and fancy,' so that was what she did, all the while worrying whether she was on balance or tipping to one end of the scale or the other. If not for Sophie, she might still have been in panic mode when he came to get her, but the girl went so far as to insist that she stay at the top of the stairs and let herself be called down, to have that 'coming down the stairs' moment. Chloe came this close to losing it, seeing the sort of dumbstruck look on George's face, and she had to remind herself to thank Sophie later. George wasn't doing so bad himself, so much that she'd nearly tripped at the sight of him, but she'd recovered so smoothly she doubted he noticed.

She had no idea what he had in mind that would require this night's dress code, or if there had been some plan in particular more than 'to do something out of the ordinary.' She was thinking this more and more, as she realized they seemed to be headed to his place. This was followed by a slight concern that she might have given him the wrong idea, that they were moving too fast, which was then snuffed out as she came to see they were not headed for his apartment so much as they were climbing toward the roof.

The moment she set foot on the surface, her foot nearly rolled out from under her and she looked down.

"What did you…" she laughed. The rooftop was covered in carpet, several of them, in different shapes, textures, colors…

"What do you always tell me as soon as we leave the workshop?" he asked, smirking.

"I… Oh," she grinned. _Can't wait to get my shoes off. _So she did, and he did, too, and they walked about, her barefoot and him in his socks. "What happens if it starts raining?"

"Then I'm going to have a lot of soggy carpets to take care of before I return them to all my neighbors. Don't worry about it," he insisted. "Have a seat," he guided her to a spot on the roof and they sat.

"I never actually saw the view from up here," she smiled, stretching up on her knees to look.

"Maybe we should come up here more often," George nodded, with that sparkling white grin of his. "Hungry?"

"Sta… I… Yeah," she tried to course correct her way out of sounding too desperate.

"Good, dinner should be here any minute. For your sake, I didn't try to cook."

"I'm sure you would have done fine," she smiled.

"I've gotten people in the hospital before," he tipped his head forward, and she laughed.

A minute passed, and then another, as they talked about this and that. George told her the tale of the many carpets, which included the promise of several errands, some dogs walked, and a few kids babysat. It wasn't until he'd finished his tale and gotten her face red with laughter that they realized the food hadn't arrived yet.

"They know we're on the roof, right?" she asked.

"Yeah, they're slow sometimes," he frowned.

"It's okay," she shrugged. "I don't mind waiting," she lied down on the many carpets, staring at the sky. George was sitting by her side, and the setting sun was crowning him with orange light. She could have cried, especially knowing what was to happen in a couple of weeks. The workshop would be reaching its end, and she'd be going back to Indiana… "What happens when I'm gone?" she had to ask. She didn't want to wreck this moment, but it was all she could think about now, and she was sure he was doing the same.

"Do you think I'm going to let something like distance get in the way?" George gave her everything in a smile.

He wasn't worried, not even a little. They might be in separate states, but he wasn't giving up on her and on what they had, and knowing that, Chloe felt her own worries fade away, too. She held up her hand, and he took hold of it, bringing it to his lips so he might kiss it, stroking her fingers with his thumb. She could not believe the amount of events that had to happen just as they did, good and bad, for her to meet this boy, this wonderful person who had become something in her life like joy and sunshine personified.

"Then you have to come up to Indiana sometime, I insist," she tilted her chin up in a show of determination and he leaned down, sealing the promise with a kiss.

When the delivery boy arrived on to the carpeted roof with their dinner, they had almost forgotten it was coming. But George got up and went to pay before taking the bag back to where Chloe sat up, and they had their dinner, making up potential trips, and reunions, and anything that might come hand in hand with cultivating a long distance relationship. They stayed up on the roof until the sun had gone well out of reach and the stars had come out, and Chloe's insistence that she wanted to help George redistribute the borrowed carpets would have to wait to morning. They had fallen asleep, the both of them, curled up and barefoot, on a flooring sea.

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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